The potential for damage to the exterior finish of a vehicle parked closely adjacent another vehicle as a result of the edge of a door of such adjacent vehicle impacting against the side of the subject vehicle is so notoriously well-known as to be virtually a universal annoyance. Finish damage of this class is characterized by a small local dent as well as damage to the paint surface which is often chipped and/or abraded. These damaged areas have come to be known as "dings", and their cumulative effect not only brings about an unsightly appearance to the side of a vehicle, but also is a substantive source for reducing the value of the vehicle.
Generally, there have been two approaches in the prior art to attempting to limit or prevent the occurrence of "dings". First, permanent guard strips have been provided along the length of a vehicle in the area most susceptible to this type of damage, the protective strip being made of a resilient material and extending slightly outwardly from the vehicle surface. These so-called molding strips, which many vehicle owners believe detract from the appearance of the vehicle, are of limited effectiveness in carrying out their intended purpose. Frequently, for example, an adjacent vehicle will have a door contour that, when its door edge swings into another vehicle, does not align with the protective molding (if provided) of the impacted vehicle and therefore imparts a "ding" to that vehicle in spite of the molding strip.
A second approach has been the provision of temporary protection apparatus to be emplaced by a vehicle user whenever his vehicle is parked in such close quarters to adjacent vehicles as to be in danger of being impacted when a door of an adjacent vehicle is opened. The known prior art devices of the temporarily emplaceable type each have one or more drawbacks which include: difficult to install and/or remove, very cumbersome, difficult to store when not in use, not durable, easily stolen, ineffective, and/or expensive to fabricate.
My invention is a vehicle finish protection apparatus which falls into the temporarily emplaceable category, but which suffers from none of the drawbacks enumerated above.